Our point of view character is well-meaning governess Vicki. Vicki believes that her charge, strange and troubled boy David, is in danger from his mother, blonde fire witch Laura. Today we see several weaknesses in Vicki’s position against Laura.
The opening sequence shows that physical force is useless to Vicki. David comes down the stairs in the great house on the estate of Collinwood carrying a small cardboard suitcase. Vicki sees him and asks where he is going. He tells her he is going to the cottage on the estate to spend the night with his mother. Vicki tells him he is not. She grabs at his suitcase.
Vicki is not given to clutching at David or his possessions. The last time they had a physical confrontation comparable to this was in #68. In that one, David was throwing a tantrum, and Vicki’s attempt to restrain him only led him to escalate his violent behavior:
Today, Vicki’s intrusion into David’s personal space backfires just as badly. She inadvertently knocks the suitcase open, dumping his pajamas on the floor. She is shocked to see what she has done:
She tries to undo the damage by picking up the contents of the suitcase. That requires her to crouch down before David, destroying whatever authority she may have had over him at the beginning of the encounter:
Making matters even worse, David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, shows up and stands over Vicki while she and David are on the floor. Roger wants David to go away, and since Laura wants to take him he is working with her. As David’s governess, Vicki has no legal right to oppose the wishes of his parents, and in a conversation that begins with her in this position it is going to be psychologically difficult for her even to voice her objections:
Vicki does insist Roger meet with her alone in the drawing room while David waits upstairs, and she makes her case valiantly. But that conversation only shows that Roger is as useless to Vicki as is brawn. He ignores every consideration that does not advance his own interest, and his interest now is getting rid of David.
Flighty heiress Carolyn comes into the room and supports Vicki. Roger won’t budge. He gives a long speech about his position as David’s father, a speech which actor Louis Edmonds takes straight off the teleprompter. He delivers it with as much conviction and brio as if he had actually learned it. At the end of his dramatic reading, Nancy Barrett and Alexandra Moltke Isles bite their fingers and Mrs Isles finally turns her back to the camera, so we don’t see either of them laughing.
In Laura’s cottage, David complains to his parents about Vicki’s attempts to keep him from his mother and mentions that his father stood up for him. Roger, rather surprisingly, rises to Vicki’s defense, denying that there was any need for standing up to anyone- he claims that Vicki simply did not realize that he had given David permission to spend the night with Laura, and that they had talked about improving communication to avoid similar confusions in the future. Laura isn’t fooled by Roger’s covering up his conflict with Vicki- she clearly knows that Vicki is her adversary. Nor is the audience encouraged to believe that Roger will support Vicki when it counts. He simply thinks that he has her under control.
When Roger leaves David and Laura alone in the cottage, he says good night. He turns and walks out the door as they watch him. Neither of them says anything. This is the sort of thing that often happens in plays, less often on screen, and almost never in real life. I suppose it’s hard to make the sorts of fumbling exchanges people actually have in those moments fit into a drama, but still, it would have avoided a distracting moment to have Laura and David say good night in reply.
Back in the great house, Vicki talks with Carolyn and visiting parapsychologist Dr Guthrie. They tell Carolyn that Laura was lying when she denied having seen Carolyn’s mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, on the day when Liz was stricken with the mysterious ailment that has sent her to the hospital. Dashing action hero Burke Devlin has told Vicki that Liz came upon him and Laura in Laura’s cottage shortly before Liz’ first attack, and that Liz and Laura were still together when Burke left them.
Carolyn has been madly in love with Burke, unable to think about anything else when she is reminded of him. She does initially react to his name with “You talked to Burke?” in the same dreamy tone of voice she has used hithertofore, but quickly resumes her focus on the business at hand. Her feelings for him have not vanished, but she has matured sufficiently that she can set them aside while she deals with a crisis.
That is not to say that Carolyn is entirely grown-up in her behavior. When she learns that Laura has lied about Liz, Carolyn wants to march down to the cottage at once and confront her with “absolute proof that she is responsible for my mother’s illness.” Vicki points out that Laura’s lie is by no means proof of any such thing, and Guthrie says that he doesn’t want Laura to know how much the three of them know.
Having learned that Vicki and her allies have nothing to hope from either physical force or from Roger, we then discover that they can’t count on the writers either. Carolyn asks why Guthrie wants to hide their knowledge from Laura. The audience knows that they are in conflict with Laura and will have to be careful with any information that might enable them to catch her off-guard at a strategic moment. That Carolyn does not know this makes her sound like an idiot.
Guthrie’s response makes this bad situation worse. He makes the nonsensical claim that they should try to keep Laura from realizing that they are suspicious of her. Carolyn is openly hostile to Laura, Vicki has had to tell Laura repeatedly that she is trying to keep her son from her, and Laura treated Guthrie frankly as an enemy when they met yesterday. Considering that the only thing that has happened so far this week is that Dr Guthrie has been brought up to date with the story, seeing him presented to us as someone unable to hold onto information or process it gives the audience the feeling that we’ve just wasted a whole lot of time.
In the course of this miserable conversation, Guthrie does disclose a fateful plan. He says that he is considering organizing a séance. That marks the first utterance of what will, in the years to come, become perhaps the single most important word in all of Dark Shadows. In this instance, it is obscured by Guthrie’s inexplicable idea that Laura might agree to join them as a participant in their séance.
In the cottage, Laura’s behavior towards David is quite peculiar and seems to unsettle him. He was sitting next to her on the couch she has made up for a bed when she suggested he go get a book and read to her. When he found the book and sat down where it had been, she at once pleaded with him to come back and sit by her again. After expressing his puzzlement, David humors her. She squeezes him while he holds a smile. In an extended closeup, that smile shows several emotions- pleasure and self-satisfaction are in there, but so are confusion, discomfort, and loneliness.
David drifts off, and a visitor comes to the cottage. Laura calls to her before we can see her. “Josette! I know you’re here!” David has a friendly relationship with the ghost of his ancestor, Josette Collins. Apparently Laura is also on a first name basis with Josette. For some time now, the show has emphasized that Josette never appears to more than one person at a time. Though Laura and David are both in the room, Josette manifests:
Laura orders Josette to go away, and she does. After she has gone, David wakes up. He says that “It feels like someone was here.”Laura tells him no one was, and he goes back to sleep.
Laura has her back to Josette, and David is unconscious. So perhaps that’s why she is able to break her usual rule and appear when more than one person is in the room.
Or perhaps there isn’t more than one person in the room. We know that Laura is not quite human, and not exactly alive. In her previous star turn, when she rescued Vicki from the crazed Matthew Morgan in #126, Josette was accompanied by the ghosts of beloved local man Bill Malloy and the Widows of Collinsport. Perhaps we are to conclude that Laura, like them, has erupted into the narrative from the supernatural back-world.
As we opened with a demonstration of the protagonists’ weaknesses, so Josette’s retreat exposes a further weakness. Josette has been established as the mighty supernatural protectress of David, Vicki, and the rest of the household. Yet Josette cannot overpower Laura. If there is to be a happy ending for David, Vicki will have to marshal her forces with care.
Dark Shadows Commentary 